another year, another becoming

facing 33

I went on an unexpected shroom journey yesterday, a day before my 33rd birthday.

I had been warned, by the person I’m dating, that the psilocybin gummies in my possession were strong but I guess the arrogance in me (or the wisdom?) said: no, go on, take more as I greedily reached over for the second helping of the perfectly molded mushroom jelly, so soon after I had plopped in and chewed the first.

I knew I was being knocked out the moment I needed to be horizontal… so I gave in. Barely able to construct sentences on my computer I hobbled over to my bed, my hot water bottle crunched at my waist, inelegant in my period boyshorts and socks falling down my feet, I lay down. Suddenly distressed, I realized I was about to enter a state of deep unraveling. What had I done? It’s a Monday, I told myself, I had emails, errands, and details I had to get to. Instead, I abruptly lay enraptured by my frozen open Mubi tab, feeling certifiably starry-headed.

The resistance crept up, discomfort ever-present. Would I take the leap, or would I leave myself in the shock of being forced into a journey I hadn’t been prepared for? Not so surprisingly, I decided on the former and for the next few hours I flittered through different dimensions, and several assorted mediums aided to help me through the process of a mushroom healing that I so apparently needed. Nothing like a macro dose when you’re expecting a micro… it hits you like a sudden wave. I slowed my breath down and embraced it, like water I was allowing it to brush over me, move me and bring me to the surface of thought after thought.

One thing I know about psychedelics is that when they direct you, all you can do is follow. To trust the inherent intelligence of the plant, you must let it dissolve into you. If you resist, you’ll be met with pain, an apt metaphor for life. Some part of me likes Russian roulette, so I took my chances.

*

It makes sense that many of us are reflective around our birthdays. For me, already reflecting on the new year, I guess I felt primed to spend a day thinking about my existence as I prepared to go to the next stage of life. I was surprised, as I let go, how gleeful I felt learning how to fly, orbit and loop through the sky of my own mind. I never go into a deep thinking state on purpose, but I’ve been finding these wild times + astrological varietals + personal trials/tribulations + many other different reasons we all individually encounter means we’re just thinking deeper about shit, you know? We are charting completely new parameters of self as we try and harness our beings through these exciting and treacherous dimensions. Call that surviving through a pandemic.

Yesterday I talked to my friend Ferdaws on the phone for a few hours while I was tripping. For the past few months, I’ve been thinking about a few things — namely, boundaries. What feels good for me, and this is the most important part, when I’m around other people? Until the last year or so, I’d never really thought about my needs too deeply, as I’d always been so conditioned to be offering myself to something, somebody. I think traumatized folks are so rarely conditioned to encounter themselves or their own needs that those very things become elusive diffractions that are so easily dismissed. Primarily disconnected from me, having been met with disappointment about any need I had since childhood, I’d taught myself to be so self-reliant that I’d never need anyone. For most of my twenties, I was cocky about the fact that I had done everything on my own. I had survived on my own. Moved to America when I was 19, alone. I became an adult on my own — with no womb or no tutelage to support or guide me. No money, no parent, no house to shield me. I’ve been on my own since I was kid, why would I need anyone else?

Anyone highly capable at life will tell you it’s a blessing and a curse to rely totally on yourself. A blessing because you are actualized and don’t need others in order to engineer momentum in your life, you are your own chariot. A curse because you deny yourself relationships, misbelieving you don’t need to depend on others. I’ve recently been reading Attached, the book on attachment theory. Understanding I’m anxious-avoidant (leaning toward anxious) has helped me gauge why at certain times in my life I’ve idealized aloneness as if it was a superpower that I could weather through anything. I laughed with my dad during the pandemic, both of sheltered and cloistered in isolation. Would we die in our houses alone — him in Al Ain and me in New York? I see it in both of us, a monk-like academic diligence that means we can get lost in translations and reading and dancing and singing, we are so Muslim. But I wasn’t been honest with him or myself at the time… because the truth is, this feeling in both of us, I know, surfaced through rejection… we turned to ourselves because so many others had betrayed us. At a certain point of one’s own healing, those things have to be named.

Now, I’m at a juncture. I’m realizing that I’ve given myself to many different people and that it’s integral for my own self-preservation that I prioritize myself and inevitably there is something important, necessary and healing in finding community, people, and brethren who can support you. Under capitalism, there is this obsession that our only value is our productivity. We compose ourselves around these arbitrary rules that have dominated our understanding of time and responsibility when all we really want to do… is rest. So many of us are facing depression because our bodies are being met with complete exhaustion. Yet, under these circumstances, we are forced to work, make a life for ourselves, and take care of ourselves when we are sick as thing after thing tries to knock us down and all the while we face deep isolation. I don’t say this lightly, I am not surprised that so many loved ones I know are struggling with suicidal ideation. The times are impossible. What is being asked of us day after day is brutalizing, we also have to name that more.

As our governments tell us to get back to normal, pretending that we are not still in a pandemic, that people aren’t still dying because of this pandemic, that there aren’t sick and immunocompromised people who have been forced into even deeper isolation because we continue to pretend that we are fine, masking our reality… we have to collectively have pockets where we remember that simply isn’t true. As if living life was ever about the bullshit we amount to it. A job? Are you kidding me? THAT’S WHAT I AM LIVING FOR? How has capitalism robbed us of our pure nature of being human? Just the simplicity of living?

When I turn to nature, there is a surrender that I so naturally remember on the shrooms. The slowness calls like an aching chant and I find myself wanting to listen more and more. Stillness is required in these times. Heck, it’s Mercury in Retrograde after all. So what do we do? We find rest. We find ourselves. We find each other. We turn to each other. We lean on each other. We make safety in each other. We find language to communicate truthfully to each other.

We remember, like a prayer, that there is more to life than just capitalism.

*

I am excited about the next few months of essays I have in store for all of you. I am shifting and reverberating as I edge closer and closer to a new transformation and with that my vision and language are clarifying. Those parts of me are hungry to speak, extrapolate and share all that I’m learning and processing through these unique and yet gratifying times.

I am proud of myself for learning new paradigms and for putting the Capricorn aside as I move, instead, toward vulnerability and openness for the fact that I don’t have all the answers, but that I am open to learning. What is new and what is big is that I do not want to apologize for myself anymore, but I do want to be accountable — and those are two different things. I want to be open to the shifting tides whilst remembering that I have the power to know what I need in any given moment if I can tap into myself. I can be receptive, agile and I can also be boundaried and protective.

I’m learning there’s a self I want to protect.

My time and energy is sacred but I’m still understanding the power in that, and also what it means when you claim your energy and life force back and redirect it back into your own life. There’s a difference between community and who can really show up for you, know the specifics. Find pathways back to yourself, find ways to communicate to the lost, disassociative parts of you so you can begin to ascertain your own circumference and who and what feels good around it. I’m choosing silence more, I’m paying attention to who respects me when I pull back.

*

In 2023, I need rest and care more than I ever have before. Publishing Who Is Wellness For? totaled me out. It was like I got hit by a very big truck, and I’ve been lying on the side of the road for months, just trying to get back on my feet and back onto the road. But things are blurry, there’s wreckage in my hair and I’m cut all over. So I’m in recovery. I don’t want to work hard for a while, and yet there’s rent and bills to be paid and healing costs money. Instead of bemoaning that I have a chronically ill and broken body, I’m finding encouragement in the repair. Just like plants, humans are here to be alive. We are here to connect to our souls, and to find peace and recovery in our individual stories and lives. Instead, we’ve been thrust into the mechanics of making money in the cog that keeps grinding… but that’s not the life I want for myself right now. I want softness, I want slowness, I want to continue finding ways back to myself. I want to continue healing so that I can continue to give to my community. That much, today, on my 33rd birthday, is clear.

So, with that, I humbly ask, if you have ever considered becoming a paid subscriber, maybe consider doing it today as a birthday present to me! Or if you are willing or able to send money here’s my PayPal or Venmo. I welcome and cherish anything you may want to share. On this blessed day, I am opening myself up to receive from anyone who wants to give to me with an open heart, deep love and gratitude.

Be kind to yourselves today, love yourselves harder today

all my love as well

fa